Rainbow Weddings

Celebrating Pride, Identity and LoveBy Jessie Reid

Photo by Mark’s Garden

First created by San Francisco’s Gilbert Baker, the rainbow has been a symbol of LGBT pride since the late ‘70s. Baker is an artist and drag queen who wanted to create a flag that gave the gay rights movement a unified image. The rainbow’s many colors signify the diversity within the community, and its brightness stands for pride, joy and energy.

Originally made with 8 colors, Baker assigned specific meaning to each color:

Color | Meaning

Hot pink | Sexuality

Red | Life

Orange | Healing

Yellow | Sunlight

Green | Nature

Turquoise | Magic/art

Indigo/blue | Serenity/harmony

Violet | Spirit

The design has since undergone several revisions due to the availability of fabrics. The six-color version has been popular since 1979 and includes red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and violet.

The rainbow flag has found wide application and is routinely used as a show of LGBT identity and solidarity. The history and symbolism of the rainbow make it the perfect color scheme for a same-sex wedding.

One beautiful way to incorporate rainbow into a wedding is by adding rainbow-colored flowers to your ceremony space. To decorate your aisles, you can hang small arrangements of flowers from the ends of the rows of seats. Each arrangement can be multi-colored, or you can have a spectrum of hues running down the aisle. Looking for something more simple? Ombre the sides of your aisle with petals, or go for a more elaborate look like celebrity wedding designer Mindy Weiss created with Mark’s Garden, a couture floral studio out of Los Angeles (image above).​

"You need to make sure you hire professionals with good reputations. But it's especially important that you like two vendors on your wedding day team - really like them. You should want to be friends with your planner and your photographer. You should look forward to your meetings with them. Clicking with these two people is super important because they are literally in your space on the wedding day. They can absolutely make a difference in how much you ​enjoy your big day."- Christy Matthews